y; be out of love with your Nativity, and almost chide
God for making you that countenance you are; or I will
scarce think you have swam in a _Gondola_.

_As You Like It_, act iv, sc. I, lines 33-35.

_Annotation of the Commentators_.
That is, _been at Venice_, which was much visited by the young English
gentlemen of those times, and was _then_ what _Paris_ is _now_--the seat
of all dissoluteness.--S. A.[191]

[The initials S. A. (Samuel Ayscough) are not attached to this note, but
to another note on the same page (see _Dramatic Works_ of William
Shakspeare, 1807, i. 242).]

INTRODUCTION TO _BEPPO_

_BEPPO_ was written in the autumn (September 6--October 12, _Letters_,
1900, iv. 172) of 1817, whilst Byron was still engaged on the additional
stanzas of the Fourth Canto of _Childe Harold_. His new poem, as he
admitted from the first, was "after the excellent manner" of John
Hookham Frere's _jeu d'esprit_, known as _Whistlecraft_ (_Prospectus and
Specimen of an intended National Work_ by William and Robert
Whistlecraft, London, 1818[192]), which must have reached him in the
summer of 1817. Whether he divined the identity of "Whistlecraft" from
the first, or whether his guess was an after-thought, he did not
hesitate to take the water and shoot ahead of his unsuspecting rival. It
was a case of plagiarism _in excelsis_, and the superiority of the
imitation to the original must be set down to the genius of the
plagiary, unaided by any profound study of Italian literature, or an
acquaintance at first hand with the parents and inspirers of
_Whistlecraft_.

It is possible that he had read and forgotten some specimens of Pulci's
_Morgante Maggiore_, which J. H. Merivale had printed in the _Monthly
Magazine_ for 1806-1807, vol. xxi. pp. 304, 510, etc., and it is certain
that he was familiar with his _Orlando in Roncesvalles_, published in
1814. He distinctly states that he had not seen W. S. Rose's[193]
translation of Casti's _Animali Parlanti_ (first edition [anonymous],
1816), but, according to Pryse Gordon (_Personal Memoirs_, ii. 328), he
had read the original. If we may trust Ugo Foscolo (see "Narrative and
Romantic Poems of the Italians" in the _Quart. Rev_., April, 1819, vol.
xxi. pp. 486-526), there is some evidence that Byron had read
Forteguerri's _Ricciardetto_ (translated in 1819 by Sylvester (Douglas)
Lord Glen